


Never Quite Free

by Leamas



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Alucard's Tragic Backstory, Emery Family Dynamics, by which I mean abusive and awful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-03 05:35:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21174281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leamas/pseuds/Leamas
Summary: Alucard left, although not willingly. This would be easier to work with if there were not limits to how far "leaving" could actually bring him when he would always be Reson Emery's second son.





	1. Chapter 1

He’d never felt vulnerable before this, and Alucard hated it. He knew that it was the wrong word, too, but what would be a better way to put it? That he was fragile? Breakable? He’d already been broken. Shattered into so many pieces by his father’s cane that the healer he’d found after escaping was impressed he’d been able to walk without being ill. Alucard hadn’t mentioned the part about escaping, mostly for worry that the pirates his father had handed him off to would be looking for him, but a little bit because he thought the woman trying to realign his bones might faint. She was of a shockingly nervous disposition for someone who repaired gruesome injuries from the back of the shop that she worked at legally. But nervous disposition or not, she’d done a good job, putting Alucard back together.

Everything healed. For a long time it still hurt, and still Alucard would hold himself as if he expected his body to continue failing him, but the bruises faded. The bones mended. He wouldn’t walk for the rest of his life with a body carrying broken pieces of himself, or with open wounds that betrayed how someone decided that he deserved to be hurt in that way. What scars he was left with were just marks on his skin; a change in the shape of his body. Alucard was not the only man with scars, and the ones he had were relatively tame compared to some of what he saw on other men and women that he met when he took to the sea again.

It occurred to Alucard early in his exile/escape, once he was fairly certain that his kidnappers weren’t going to keep looking for him (they’d been paid already, and so cared very little of of him) that he could get in touch with Rhy if he wanted. And he did.

But he had to see it from Rhy’s perspective.

It was one thing to sneak a man like Alucard back into his rooms, to lay tangled in his arms and to come apart beneath him.

It would be something else to receive word from Alucard now that he was the disgraced, vanished son of Reson Emery. And Alucard had no plan for what he would say, his desire to send word to Rhy freezing when he thought of explaining what had happened. Because it would be pathetic to write to him now, to ask for his understanding. For help setting the record straight and catapulting Rhy’s own affairs to a public stage, when what they’d done had only ever been private—all so that he could return to an estate that would be happy to see him never return.

He could at least ask Rhy to send word to Anisa (he could only imagine what version of the story she was being given), and that was the extent that he could think of her at all without choking on a blinding anger that he’d never known before.

(He considered lying. Writing to Rhy and telling them that he’d left—making an excuse for why he hadn’t told Rhy before slipping away—and writing the whole thing off as something less desperate. Then, when he didn’t find himself facing the possibility of matching words to injuries, it seemed more possible.)

_I don’t want to see him here until you’ve set him right_, had been the exact words that Alucard heard while he was being passed off for the price of ten rish. The worst thing that Alucard could do to Reson now would be to return to London, and if he wanted revenge that would be the best course to take. But for the first time in his life, Alucard had the chance to be something besides Reson’s second son. Why not take it?

As it turned out, there were a lot of options available for someone like Alucard. Until this point he’d never really lived outside of London, unless he counted the visits to his family’s various estates dotted around Arnes, and so certain skills were lacking. What he had was a certain innate charm reserved for nobility—to men who had been refused nothing in their life, or at least nothing that could be mentioned in polite company. He was entertaining. And most importantly he not only had more magic singing through his veins than the average person (and certainly more than the average sailor), but he could also see magic, which was ultimately how he talked his way onto a ship that already had a fair few magicians in her employ.

“You’ve never been to sea before,” a woman called Aytaç said to him one morning, when she caught him alone staring out to the horizon. “Have you?”

He’d not heard her approach over the sound of the waves, but had seen the threads of magic turn towards her. “Not in any way that counts.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So does this count?”

“Sure. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Aytaç said. “I suppose you are. So get to work, instead of gawking at the horizon. It’ll be there all day.”

“Are you so jaded that you can’t appreciate a view?” Alucard asked, peeling himself away from the side of ship and setting to work. There was always something to do. No such thing as a quiet moment at sea.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true, but Alucard could always _find _something to do. Some use for his hands. Simultaneously, now that they were this far from land, the ship had become the start and the end of the world, and but a small piece of it. It was a nice juxtaposition. It felt… free.

“You’re more jaded than I am,” Aytaç said, “so you should know that’s not my problem.”

“Then what is your problem?”

“Why do you think I have one?” She was counting out her smoke bombs for later that night. He’d watched her make them—careful measurements with a little help from her own magic—and he’d seen her use them, too. There was an application for earth magic that he’d not considered before this. Later, he’d try it for himself, but for now he wasn’t so keen to reveal himself to be a triad. That was something that people would remember, and while he wasn’t exactly expecting to be found, the possibility of it followed him.

Alucard thought that she put the question to him dismissively, but when he looked back to her he saw that Aytaç was still looking at him. “Well?” she asked.

“Why else would you be here?” Alucard asked. “Clearly you didn’t come for the view.”

“The pay is good,” Aytaç said. “I have friends here.”

Alucard couldn’t imagine the kind of person that Aytaç would consider a friend.

“And maybe a few people owe me favours,” she concluded. “Why? Are you surprised?”

“No,” he said, surprised to find that he meant it. “That would mean I had to have expectations of you.”

Something that Alucard hadn’t expected when he started his life of crime and piracy was that he’d be so good at it. It was one thing to match magic-against-magic in an arena; and another thing to match it in a real fight. And it was something else entirely to match magic against brute force. To turn magic into the kind of brute force that Alucard needed it to be. There was something so easy about the violence that came with boarding another and ripping down everyone who crossed him as though he hadn’t. At first he was more careful about how he did it, not wanting to fuck up or leave himself exposed to a blow that he failed to anticipate, but in time efficiency took over. The routine took some getting used to, especially as he was along with a crew used to each other, but he was a welcome figure. Board a ship, dragging part of the sea along with him. It was a concentrated weight that he could throw around with enough force to shatter bones on impact. Then it didn’t take much to rip the air from a person’s lungs and leave them gasping at his feet as he stepped over them. And if they really looked like they were going to be trouble, well—it didn’t take a genius to know how to land a kick to shatter ribs or a shoulder, if he was feeling particularly nasty.

_This is the kind of thing that you don’t live with_. When the thought came to him it was unwanted, and uninvited. He was alone in the bunk he shared with a few others, running his fingers over the collarbone that had been broken only a few months ago. If Reson Emery could live with his violence, then why not Alucard, too?

The memories of waking in the hold of a different ship, before having found someone who’d set his broken bones and fix him, were vague but also too sharp to let him settle. At some point while his father beat him he’d passed out, and then the next thing that he remembered was waking, already at sea. Whether he was told at some point during those first few awful nights by someone leaning on his broken shoulder, their hand tangled in his hair to keep him still, that his father had made it clear not to let him back until they had the chance to _set him right_; or whether that was something that his unconscious body heard while he was being handed away, he didn’t know. But it was an entire, coherent thought that choked him with his own abominable rage.

The next time they docked, it didn’t take Alucard long to find what he was looking for. There was always someone desperate for company, and Alucard knew when he found such a man. He was Vesken, a few years older than Alucard and most generously described as _rugged_. It took a few attempts at ‘conversation’ before they found a language in common, and then the extent of what was said was, “I know a place. You follow.” And Alucard did.

It was about as different to being with Rhy as was possible. The man was all broad where Rhy was small, rough where Rhy was graceful. When Rhy had made a fist in his hair, Alucard had gasped but willingly followed, relishing the light touch of teeth tracing the delicate skin at his throat; here, it felt like being attacked. Like being _vulnerable_, although Alucard allowed it, despite the tension that ran through him. When Alucard ran his hands down the length of Rhy’s body, he delighted the way that even the lightest touch undid the prince; here, his touch was not light, he undid nothing, and he found the flesh under his fingers hard and uninviting. Nonetheless Alucard found his completion, although it was dragged out of him with some difficulty, and Alucard (_ever the gentleman_, he thought to himself as he dropped to one knee) upheld his end of the bargain as though it was a kind of contract, and nothing more. In the end he was left sitting against the far wall of whatever room the Vesken man had brought him to, with his skin still prickling as he realised that he didn’t know where he was or who might find him. He was almost giddy as he righted his clothes and slipped away, miraculously falling out onto the street as easily as the rain fell.

He was resisting the urge to look over his shoulder when a familiar flicker magic caught his eye through a window. Aytaç was seated by the window of some dimly lit restaurant, the threads of her magic glinting at him through the glass.

Alucard paused, glanced down the street in the direction that he came from, and studied her from this angle. It looked like she’d dressed up, with a scarf around her neck, and a silver band in her dark hair. Her expression looked no softer than usual, and her black eyes looked as smooth as granite, but her lips were turned up slightly. And she wore a dress like any woman in this port, as if she’d just come out for a bite to eat and to have some fun.

Again, Alucard looked in the direction from where he’d come, and—telling himself that it wasn’t like he wanted to be near someone familiar, but that he needed to be on the other side of the glass—stepped into the pub and pushed his way between the crowd gathered near the door, to where Aytaç sat near the front window. Then he stopped, frozen and realising that she wasn’t here alone (that he’d _interrupted something_) but of course by then it was too late. The man that she sat with had noticed him with pale grey eyes that offset his pale, sunburnt skin only a little. He didn’t say anything, but Aytaç turned to face him all the same, frowning, then frowning more deeply when she saw who it was.

“Is there a problem?” she asked when Alucard neared their small table.

“Not really,” he said. “Unless you count how hungry I am. I’m just looking for a bite to eat.”

“You look like shit,” she said, her eyes moving down to his neck, then shaking her head. The heat under his skin burned deeper, but he just smiled.

“What do you recommend?”

“Pull up a chair,” Aytaç said. “You can sit next to Vettesse if you tell him that he’s wrong.”

“You’re wrong,” Alucard said to the other man. “Hold on while I go find a chair that no one’s using.”

He was pretty sure that no one would be coming back for the chair that he commandeered, or at least sure enough, and pulled his seat up at the table. When Aytaç and Vettesse stood to move the table out, to make room for Alucard with his back to the window, he noted a flash of brown skin under Aytaç’s skirt—nothing notable, apart from the old burn scar that seemed to lay across it in a thick line the size of his arm. Then she adjusted her skirts and nodded for Alucard to sit.

“So what were you wrong about?” he asked the man.

Vettesse licked his lip, glancing to Aytaç before turning his attention over to Alucard. He looked like every other person who’d been put on the spot, and Alucard almost felt bad for that. Almost, except for the way that his eyes kept glancing down to Alucard’s neck. If not for the line of bites that was probably there by now, the handprint around his throat would have looked like just a hazard of life.

“Have you ever heard of a fixed end?” Vettesse asked.

“Doesn’t seem familiar,” Alucard said.

Vettesse seemed to step outside of himself for a moment. “Okay, so you know how scrying works? That you aren’t really looking into the future when you do it like that?”

Alucard nodded.

“It’s because what you’re looking at is just yourself,” Vettesse said, “and the real future exists outside of you. Obviously. To really see the future, you’d have to see not only every person involved, but the circumstances that would influence them, and so on and so forth. And that’s only considering the effect that _people_ will have on your future. Have you ever tried to predict the future of a rock?”

“The future isn’t real, Vettesse,” Aytaç said coolly.

“I didn’t realise they had a future,” Alucard said slowly.

“Forget a rock,” he said. “What about the sea. Or the weather—you’re a sailor, aren’t you?”

Alucard realised that he was, and so nodded.

“You can know the future of the weather, and the tides, based on the circumstances that you can see,” he said. “And if you’re at sea, you’ll know that you can probably predict being wet, if it looks like it will storm.”

A smile quirked at the side of Alucard’s mouth. “Okay.”

“The future isn’t real,” Aytaç repeated.

“That’s why you’re never going to believe me,” Vettesse said, “if you can’t get past that.” He turned back to Alucard. “She’s partially right. The future is always changing so it isn’t possible to get a set reading on it without doing a kind of magic that’s not only very difficult and time consuming, but very illegal in most parts of the world. Maybe that wouldn’t bother you, though.”

Alucard nodded again. “I think that I follow.”

Aytaç, too, was listening carefully. It didn’t slip Alucard’s notice the way that Vettesse kept glancing her way, before settling back to Alucard again.

“A fixed end is a very specific kind of magic that guides a person to a specific fate,” he said. “It is very difficult to do, because of how many factors need to be considered, and for that reason as well it’s a bit limited in scope. I said that it guides a person to a _specific_ fate, but the more general what you’re trying to do, the more likely you will be to succeed.”

“So it’s just a good luck charm,” Aytaç said. “That’s all it is. Maybe you’re turning the odds in your favour, maybe you aren’t. But you can’t have that much say over what’s happening, can you?”

Vettesse shrugged, glancing down at his mostly untouched food. He looked like he should be eating more than he was, being so thin that he looked gaunt, bordering on sickly. “That’s an extremely broad view to take, Aytaç.”

“The future isn’t real, and the past isn’t real,” she said. Alucard thought of the flash of burnt skin that he’d seen while he was sitting down—something old, a discolouration that had warped the texture of her skin forever. He realised, then, that he was reaching for his once-shattered collarbone, now healed but with a lump that hadn’t been there before, offsetting the otherwise smooth line.

“I really don’t know how you can say that this is impossible when you know what I can do,” Vettesse said, quickly cutting himself off as he made eye contact with Alucard again. As though remembering that he was there for the first time, that the company that he was with wasn’t as familiar as it had been just moments before.

Alucard gave a half smile. “Do you know what I can do, Vettesse?”

“What?”

“I can see magic,” he said. “And I can see that yours is light—white, like a really hot fire. And it twists around you a bit strangely. Everyone’s is different, but yours hangs off of you like it’s a piece of fabric that’s been stretched too far and doesn’t fit right anymore.”

Vettesse frowned. “You’re really charming, you know that?”

“What can I say,” he said. “Anyway, I have to say I still disagree with you, as was the price for this.” He tapped his seat. “But it was interesting to hear about, all the same.”

Vettesse snorted, and soon the conversation moved on to other topics. Safer topics that were easy and didn’t require following along too carefully—which was good, in a pub this loud—and for the rest of the evening, Alucard was grateful for the distraction.

And that whole night was a brief distraction. He felt no better upon his return to sea, but no worse either, although as the shore retreated onto the horizon Alucard felt a heaviness in his throat as he stared after it, like it was difficult to swallow. He felt no particular attachment to this port, or to the land in general. He let it go easily and carried on with what he spent his days doing. Following orders he was given. Letting the brute force of his magic guide his hand. It was easy. He took to it well, if _taking to it _was what he called the way that he collected his own tremendous acts of violence. If fighting off the steady drop in his chest at the sound of certain broken bones (and the screams that followed) could be called _taking to it_, then Alucard took to it spectacularly. The night that he realised that his lack of mercy against anyone who begged was an expected part of any raid, Alucard found himself heaving over the edge of the ship. The taste of metal stuck to his mouth for the rest of the night: whether it was the taste of acid in his stomach or a flash of a memory, he neither knew nor thought about. It was easy.

As easy as avoiding thoughts of home, of the sister that he left in the hands of the man who’d beaten him so savagely that the whole left side of Alucard’s body still sang out with pain from time to time; and the hands of his brother, who had watched indifferently. It hadn’t mattered to either of them how he’d tried to explain himself. How he’d begged.

It was as easy as forgetting London, when every morning he woke asking himself whether that final visit to Rhy had been worth what came after.


	2. Chapter 2

It was inevitable that Alucard was arrested. After he was taken, and processed, and put in chains—when the chains stopped burning the first time and the burns on his wrist became just this side of bearable—Alucard had to admit that there were not many other ways that this could have ended. How long had he thought that he could carry on like that? That he could be so bold and reckless, so vicious? He’d flaunted the power that had chosen him, let it run basically unchecked for several months. In the moment it felt amazing and wonderful and horrible, like being drunk and out of control and _free_. It felt like being invincible.

Now, sitting in the back of a cell, the chains around his wrists felt inevitable in the same way that being discovered with Rhy was inevitable. The only difference was that this time Alucard wasn’t naïve enough to be surprised.

Would that Rhy could see him now!

He thought again of what he’d say—if he’d say anything. At this point it was wishful thinking that he’d live long enough to have the chance.

There was a certain balance to being dragged back like this. He’d been taken from London by pirates so that they would _set him right_; now several months later, he was being brought back on charges of piracy, forced to answer for several months that he’d spent trying to forget about a single evening. Alucard could only blame himself for this. If he wanted to come back under better circumstances, he should have turned to London when he escaped.

As it was, he wasn’t entirely convinced that these circumstances were worse. Wouldn’t it be better for word to get back that he’d been a restless, arrogant noble with a taste for adventure, like so many before him, than whatever his father had said about him?

But who knew what Reson Emery had said about him?

On the other side of the cell, a few of the prisoners were shouting through the bars at some of the passing guards. At first Alucard hadn’t paid much attention: there was usually some abuse passing between the two groups whenever the guards made their rounds. Usually there were some demands for cigarettes or water or something better to eat—not that the food here wasn’t much worse than what Alucard had been eating at sea, although he kept his opinion to himself—and then from the guards, a few insults, some orders to get back, the clanging of a blunt instrument against the bars.

But the jeering had gone on longer today, and at a certain point the tone of it all shifted. There were two prisoners that seemed to be doing most of the shouting, and where the guards usually just passed, today three stood on the other side of the bars and were shouting back. Alucard hadn’t seen what set this off, but he could see the direction that it was headed. When the cell door flew open, he was the only prisoner who didn’t jerk back in surprise.

The two prisoners that had been acting up were slammed up against the metal bars before being dragged away by two of the guards—and Alucard, his wrists still sore from what had been done to him just a few days before, did not envy them—while the third stood watch by the door. He carried a metal club that he tapped against the bars of the cell, while his pale grey eyes flit over each prisoner.

His eyes landed on Alucard, and narrowed. “Is something about this funny to you?”

Alucard hadn’t realised he’d been grinning, but he smiled wider now. “I have got to get my entertainment where I can around here.”

The cell door clanged shut. At the same time, the wall itself threw Alucard forward, like a heavy blow in the middle of the back. He just avoided catching the ground with his face.

“I didn’t realise you’d do that,” Alucard said slowly, rising up to one knee. “It’s a pretty bold thing for someone with as little magic as you to try it.”

He watched as the guard drew up closer to him. The man only looked a few years older than Alucard did. Short, wiry. Not someone that Alucard would bother to fight—the men he’d seen with that kind of flint-like look in their eye were always more hassle than they were worth, never quite realising that they’d lost a fight. It would be endearing, if it weren’t so obnoxious.

He stopped in front of Alucard, laying his club on his shoulder. “What do you know about it?”

With the limited movement that the chains afforded him, he turned his palms up. “Isn’t it obvious? If you had any real power to speak of, you wouldn’t let yourself rise to something a bunch of _alleged_ criminals shouted at you.”

He just barely had time to dodge the club as it came down on him, throwing himself back and knocking against the bench that he’d just been sitting at with his back. The second time he ducked to the side, and the third time the club struck him on the shoulder, and pain shot through him. For a moment Alucard couldn’t breathe. Only some latent instinct made him raise his hands before another blow could land on him. Then everything froze and he saw himself as he was, trying to cover himself in the empty hall of his family’s estate while his sister slept peacefully in her room above.

And he wouldn’t do it again.

Alucard feinted to the left, then lunged at the guard’s legs. He leaped up on his feet and grabbed the front of the man’s shirt, throwing him back against the wall.

“Is this what you want to do to people with real power?” Alucard snarled, his voice low so that only the guard could hear him. “Do you just think about doing this to someone you think can’t fight back?”

The blow that landed in the centre of his shoulder blades winded him a second later, but the look on the guard’s face for the second that Alucard had him pinned up against the wall was exhilarating. He’d seen fear like it before—a real fear—but it was shot through by an undercurrent of horror. As if this man couldn’t believe that this had happened to him. When the second blow landed, he was almost ill. Another set of guards hauled him off the first and forced him down on his knees. Although it was useless—the chains did a good job restraining his power—Alucard still clenched his fists in front of him and tried to twist away.

The club landed across his ribs and he wheezed, his breath knocked out of him as efficiently as how he’d torn it from anyone who crossed him during the past few months. But he knew what was coming, this time, and so at least nothing would surprise him.

Hours later, while Alucard pressed his too-warm forehead against the walls of the new cell that he’d been dropped off in, he tried to tell himself that it was worth it. At the very least he couldn’t say that he regretted it, right?

_Who are you kidding, Luc? This is awful._ He thought he’d be sick from the pain. His body couldn’t seem to decide if he was hot or cold, and so he was stuck suffering both in equal measure. A sudden round of chills that left him shivering. His skin suddenly slick with his own sweat as he leaned against the wall, gritting his teeth against the burning. He tried to give into it, but the burns on his wrists were inescapable and kept taking from him.

“Of everywhere I expected to find you again, I can’t say that I ever expected this.”

The voice cut through the general commotion despite being low. When Alucard turned away from the wall to look towards Berras, it was still somehow a surprise to see that he was actually there.

Alucard groaned and shut his eyes, trying to will Berras away, but he persisted.

“I expected something like a whorehouse,” Berras went on. “The back of some pub somewhere that I’ve never heard of.”

“A pub that you’ve never heard of?” Alucard said. “Now you just flatter me. Although I should remind you that a whorehouse would be a bit of a downgrade for me. Just a little.”

“What have you done, Alucard?”

Alucard shifted, aware that they were being watched. His brother had addressed him in High Royal; Alucard had no idea whether any of the present company could speak it, although he doubted it. But he didn’t want to attract any more attention than he already had—it was a spectacle, to throw _disciplined _prisoners into a crowded cell. A warning that no one could look away from, the sight of burnt and blistering skin somehow alluring, even though the smell continually made Alucard want to gag.

He stood so that he was just on the other side of the bars from Berras.

“What do you want?”

“To see if it was really you,” Berras said. “I already said, I didn’t expect to ever see you again.”

“Yes,” Alucard said. “I know. You hoped I was dead at sea. One less mark on the Emery family legacy. Wouldn’t want to outdo you in your part of disgracing the name.”

But Berras was not going to rise to it today. Shame pricked the inside of Alucard’s skin, but that could wait for later. He was already distracted enough by trying to keep the pain off his face, out of his posture. (A pointless endeavour. The way that Berras kept glancing down to his burning wrists, the metal only having just stopped glowing, said everything. But it was a matter of pride, for whatever that mattered in his predicament.)

“Our father wants to see you,” Berras said. “I don’t see why he’d want to bother. First you leave, then you come back like this. Personally I think that you could do with learning a few lessons about what _consequences _mean, but he insists. For the sake of the family.”

“Fuck the family.”

Berras shrugged lazily. “I’d pass the message along, but I’m afraid that the choice isn’t ours. Father is already petitioning the crown for your release… if I confirm that it’s really you here, and not some pretender wearing your name.”

Alucard set his jaw. He tried to get a reading on Berras. It had always been hard to believe that they were brothers, in every way except appearance. With Alucard looking as filthy and dishevelled as he did, and Berras standing in this place dressed immaculately, even that resemblance seemed to fade.

“What do you want, Berras?”

“Do you want to come home?”

Alucard said nothing.

“At this point, I should let you rot here.”

“But you won’t,” Alucard said, although he didn’t know that. He couldn’t remember a time when Berras hadn’t hated him. Once Alucard thought his brother’s disdain for him was just an excuse to throw his weight around, as a way to balance his absolute lack of magic, and to an extent he still thought that was probably true and Alucard just had the misfortune of being Berras’ most convenient target. But there was a difference the posturing that Berras did in the street, throwing his weight behind his fist to prove that he could land a hit as well as any magician; and everything that he’d ever done to Alucard behind closed doors. He had a way of making his dismissive gestures into a pointed attack without even glancing his brother’s way, but when Alucard actually had Berras’ attention then he certainly missed the alternative.

“I should,” Berras repeated. “What would you do, if the situations were reversed?”

A strange thought occurred to Alucard. The pain made the odd, twisted smile into something more like a grimace, but looking at the way that Berras’ brows furrowed he was fairly sure that his intention hit its mark.

“What do you think that I did to end up here, brother?”

“Then I really have no reason not to leave you here.”

“I accept full responsibility for what I’ve done,” Alucard said. “And if this is to be my punishment for it, then so be it.”

The two brothers stared at each other. Finally, Berras turned away. “Not even your grace will help you now. If you are released, remember that it’s entirely because of the mercy bestowed to our father on your behalf. Not every situation is one that you can talk yourself out of.”

It was a week more before Alucard was pardoned. Alucard’s presence was not necessary for the affair, and he only found out precisely what had happened when he was led out of the cell and scrubbed clean. His hair was cut, his wrists were bandaged. He was given the opportunity to shave. When he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he was surprised to see how much like himself he looked, every bit Reson Emery’s second son.

The conditions of his release were made clear to him—if he must take to the seas, then he could at least serve Arnes in some capacity, and so when he left again he would leave as a privateer. When Berras lay out the conditions of his pardon, with a sneer on his lips, he made it very clear that Alucard should be grateful for this. As though he expected Alucard to resent leaving.

“Yet another skill that’s being recognised,” Alucard said.

“Yes,” Berras said. “And here I thought I’d have to say goodbye to how quiet life has been without you.”

“Maybe now you’ll finally be able to come into yourself, if I’m not here to distract you.”

Berras snorted. “As a final point, I think we should agree that we not tell Anisa all the details of what’s become of you. For her sake.”

The sound of his sister’s name was sobering. Any relief that Alucard felt quickly dried up, and he found himself starting very solemnly at his brother. “What does she know?”

“The same as what everyone knows,” Berras said. “That you left, very unexpectedly.”

If Alucard had sent word to Rhy, word would have reached Anisa before now that he hadn’t left her. It wouldn’t be necessary for him to nod contritely, agreeing to carry out this demand for the foreseeable future. Forever, really. He’d thought of sending word to Rhy extensively, not just at the beginning. He thought about explaining himself, and his absence. More than that, he thought of just being with Rhy again, if only on paper. He dreamed of some scenario where he never had to explain why he was gone, where he was and could simply return and be with Rhy and try to make him happy. What thoughts of his lingered on Anisa were brief, when he couldn’t help it, and when the grief passed he was left thinking of what she was doing without him.

It hadn’t occurred to him that he’d be dragged back to his life here, as abruptly as he’d been dragged away from it.

In the months that Alucard had been away, not a lot about the house had changed, and as he walked ahead of his brother to the front door it surprised him to realise that he didn’t actually remember the last time that he’d come in this way.

Anisa threw her arms around his legs as soon as he was through the door.

“Where _were you_?” Alucard had to peel her arms from around him so that he could kneel in front of her, and to finally see her face again. A rush of affection raced ahead of him, and he followed it, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close.

“There was something that I needed to take care of,” he murmured against the back of her hair. “But I’m here now. I didn’t _want _to leave you.”

“You won’t leave again?”

He pulled her closer, wishing that he could say that he was here to stay now. But kneeling in the entrance of the Emery estate, he knew that he was here only as a guest. A temporary resident who had outstayed his welcome a long time ago, and was only here now as a courtesy call.

“I’m afraid I can’t promise you that,” he said, “but I’m not leaving _you_.”

“But you’re still leaving.”

“I just got back.” He put his hands on her shoulders and tried to pull her back so that he could look into her face as he said it, but Anisa just held on tighter. Inside of Alucard something uncoiled, and he stroked her hair.

“This is all very touching,” Berras said, kicking Alucard’s leg with his boot, “but do try to keep it in the house.”

Alucard felt how Anisa clung to him for just a moment longer, and then how quickly she pulled away. He stood, turning to face his brother again. Briefly he’d been able to forget that Berras was there at all.

“What, do you want a hug?”

The flicker of disgust that crossed Berras’ face was wonderful, but it soon turned into a more neutral disdain as he stepped around Alucard. “I think I’ve seen quite enough of you.”

_So this is what forgiveness looks like_.

But this wasn’t forgiveness. This was a pardon. This was the crown’s acknowledgement of his crime, and their choice to give him a second chance. This was mercy, and Alucard had to swallow it whether he liked the taste or not.

When he saw Reson Emery again, his father was cordial and polite, saying the right things and wrapping an arm around his son’s shoulder that he’d broken just months earlier, for the sake of Anisa’s presence. And then, when she was no longer in the room, when it was just Alucard and his father in the grand dining room, the sky darkening outside, Reson regarded his son carefully. In the room where he’d beaten Alucard until he lost consciousness, he now stood across from his son and studied him carefully, his eyes moving from the bandages at his wrist that Alucard tried to cover with the sleeves of his jacket, to his sun-tanned faced and his hair, now slicked back and clean. His eyes lingered on the piercing on his brow, passing over his eyes and the now-more-pronounced edge to his jaw without looking into his face.

And in turn, Alucard studied his father.

This was the man who had watched with pride as Alucard developed his power, growing into a strength that first matched Reson and then exceeded him. The man that excused Alucard’s flighty nature during his youth, who enjoyed sparring with Berras—both verbally and with weapons—and who liked to dote on Anisa nearly as much as Alucard did. Reson Emery who was the willing shadow to his wife’s brightness, who walked arm-in-arm with her at every occasion; and who lived through the week of her sudden death with a most courteous grace. After her funeral he’d pulled Alucard close against him, despite Alucard’s best efforts to keep it together, in what was now the only display of affection that Alucard remembered.

Alucard tried to find any of these things as he, in turn, studied the face of the man that had cast him out, and found only the face of the man who had petitioned the king of Arnes to for the Crown’s mercy on Alucard’s behalf, after denying mercy to Alucard when he had begged it.

His hands twitched, as though readying themselves to draw on the magic flickering through him.

“You’ve grown,” his father said at last. “What has your time at sea taught you?”

“I learned a fair bit about tying knots,” Alucard said. “And some new applications for that. How to slip out of a bad situation if I ever happen to get kidnapped again.”

Reson said, “But you’re finished?”

“I’m finished,” Alucard said, remembering that it wouldn’t be long until he was leaving again—it was just a question of weathering these next few days. And then he would be gone. This time taking leave wouldn’t be so horrible. (Could he even say that it had been last time?) He’d miss Anisa, but this time he’d be able to say goodbye to her; he’d miss Rhy, too, but there was no helping that. At least this time his name wouldn’t be forced to abandon everyone without so much as a word. He was just leaving.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time that Alucard left London, all he had was his anger and a body full of broken bones.

This time he had a ship, a crew, and a cat.

Things started to get interesting a few weeks ago, when Alucard had crossed paths with Vettesse again. He didn’t recognise him at first, instead recognising the bright streaks of magic that fell around him gracelessly, like the magic itself was exhausted and had yet to realise. But then recognition settled, and he found himself putting a place to where he’d seen those gaunt features before, remembering warm that pub was was, and how the glass behind them steamed up to counter the cool, drizzly air outside.

Vettesse hadn’t recognised Alucard. He was standing at a stall on the street, turning over a piece of metal that had some kind of magic attached to it that Alucard wouldn’t have touched or ever let near him. He wouldn’t have said anything if Vettesse hadn’t looked up and caught Alucard watching him.

(At least, Alucard didn’t think that he’d have said anything.)

“What the hell is your problem?” Vettesse asked, wrapping a fist around the metal in his hand before flinching, as though it burned him. When he set it down on the table again, his hand was shaking.

“I don’t have a problem,” Alucard said. “Why so touchy?”

“It’s not usually a good sign, to stare at someone like what you’re doing.” Vettesse held himself uneasily, like he couldn’t decide if he was injured or not. But then he dropped his hands into his pockets, and whatever defensive reflex he had caught Alucard in fell away. He looked only a normal level of suspicious.

“How’s Aytaç?” Alucard asked.

“You know her.” Alucard saw the exact moment that recognition dawned on the other man. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth as though to say something, but he didn’t get further than drawing in a breath before just shaking his head. “I know you.”

“Surprised you could forget a face like mine,” Alucard said, and Vettesse gestured to his clothes.

“You’ve gone up in the world.”

“Walk with me,” Alucard said. “I’ll make it worth your time, I promise.”

As they headed to some as-of-yet undecided destination, Vettesse added, without looking up from the cobbled street, “Aytaç’s fine, if you didn’t know.”

“I thought she’d be okay,” Alucard said slowly. “Haven’t heard from her since…”

“You were arrested?”

“Did she mention me by name?”

“Don’t be stupid. No,” Vettesse said. “With how many people were caught it just means it’s exceedingly likely that you were, too. Although I don’t know what to make about—this.” Again, he gestured to Alucard’s clothes. The jacket. The sleek trousers. The boots. Alucard tugged the hem of his sleeve over his wrist, like he was making a show of adjusting it. It had been half a year since the burns healed, but he’d found himself reaching for his wrists more often now. When he looked at the scars now, he still saw them as Berras had seen them. Even when he studied them alone in the cabin of the _Night Spire_ that was _his_, he still saw as yet another way that he’d been marked—a reminder that the past was something still clinging to him.

But Vettesse didn’t know that. If he knew what those scars were from, then he’d think the obvious truth: that he’d been captured and was a poorly behaved prisoner. That was all.

“I never told you this,” Alucard said, moving the conversation along, “but I always had the feeling that she was wrong about the ‘fixed end.’ I just didn’t say anything at the time because I wanted the seat.”

“You absolute liar,” Vettesse said flatly. “What do you know about magic like that?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” Alucard said. “Can you do anything like that?”

“Me? No way,” Vettesse said. “Not anymore.”

There was a time when Alucard would have pressed the issue. Once, when he was younger. He still saw the white threads of magic trying to wrap themselves closer to Vettesse, but failing. Alucard did want to know what had happened to Vettesse, why the whorls of his magic hung listlessly around him, and to understand where he was coming from when he talked about magic, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. Questions weren’t neutral, for either party. And with the question that he was going to ask, he wanted to keep every advantage that he could.

“Do you know anyone who can?” he asked, keeping his voice light.

Vettesse shrugged. “There are a few people. It’s not easy magic. Do you remember what I said when we talked about this before?”

“What part?”

“It’s easier if you aren’t too specific,” Vettesse said. “If you want money, don’t say that you want to marry rich. Leave the doors open for the magic to reach you—but it helps if you can tell the magic exactly where to go, if that makes sense.”

“If I said that I wanted someone to meet a certain fate.”

Vettesse sighed, then laughed. “There’s probably someone who could do it for you, for cheaper than what it’ll cost you to do this. And they’d probably be more successful. I know someone who could help you there, too.”

“But that leaves a trace,” Alucard said softly.

Vettesse stopped walking, finally raising his head to look at Alucard. He hesitated in Alucard’s sight for just a moment, and Alucard was suddenly aware of just how exposed he really was. A moment later Vettesse set his expression. He lowered his voice.

“Be specific,” he said. “The less people that you involve, the better it’ll be and the less chance you’ll have for things to go wrong. I’ll give you the name and wish you luck, but you didn’t get either of these things from me.”

“As far as it matters, I’ve never seen you before in my life,” Alucard said, his own voice dropping. There was nothing that said he had to use the information that Vettesse was giving him. His days of playing pirate were over. He’d drawn a line between whatever he was doing now and all of that reckless magic that he threw around. Asking about this didn’t necessarily mean that he’d be crossing that threshold again, as though going back for something that he’d forgotten.

It would be easy to tell himself that he just wanted this information because it could be useful—one day, for a reason as of yet unknown to him.

But as Vettesse handed him the enchanted scrap of paper, immediately the most valuable thing that Alucard now had in his possession, Alucard knew that he couldn’t play at telling himself that. It was the same degree of inconsistency as telling himself and the Arnesian court that he’d just been _playing _at piracy: what difference did it make everyone who’d been unlucky enough to cross paths with him during that time? Because Alucard knew, as he thanked Vettesse with a sincerity that surprised him, exactly what he was going to do. He knew it as surely as he’d known what he would ask when they started walking. As surely as the idea had fallen on him when he’d recognised the streaks of Vettesse’s magic.

“The other thing,” Vettesse said, “is that you have to be willing to pay for this. Whatever it’s worth for you, if you’re going to do it—pay at least that much.”

Which was what brought Alucard here now, walking down the streets to the edge of this town. At this time of the year, Alucard only had a few hours between when the sun set and rose again. The sun still shone between the buildings, slanting at a gold angle as he walked through the streets of this particular port where he’d impulsively announced they’d be spending a few days. No one was disappointed to hear this, and so no one asked too many questions. He’d be back by morning, so even if anyone did miss him that night—unlikely, as the first night ashore was time to drink or find someone’s bed to share for the night, or both—he would be back before anyone thought to ask questions.

It would be a long walk to where he was headed, and as he thought about it he realised just what a chance he was taking.

He quickly turned on his heel. In the same moment Lenos froze.

Alucard grimaced, pressing his forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. “If I close my eyes and count to ten, will you still be here when I look again?”

“You said that you wanted me to tell you if I sensed danger,” Lenos said, then sheepishly added, “or if I thought something was a bad idea.”

“Do you think this is a bad idea?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you even know what _this _is?” Alucard added after a moment.

“You’re wondering off by yourself,” Lenos said. “You’re leaving this port, aren’t you?”

“Might be so,” he said. “Depends on what you have to say.”

“There isn’t anything that way. I’ve seen the maps for what’s around here. There are a few estates that way,” Lenos said, slowly. “Unless your family has an estate here?”

Not being from London, Lenos didn’t know enough about the Emery House for Alucard to wish that he didn’t have to be here with his name tacked to him. Not that this was a particularly common feeling, but it struck him every so often when he found himself in the company of people who had no reason to know a thing about how he got here, but who did, because of his family. The moments always passed quickly, though, making it bearable.

Lenos just stumbled through this information like he was trying to figure out where to put it.

“It isn’t anything like that,” Alucard said. “If you think that going up there is dangerous, then tell me now. Because you’re right. I do value your insight.”

It took a moment for Alucard to realise that Lenos wasn’t just looking at him, but rather at his how he’d reached for his wrists, turning his hands over. He forced himself to stop.

“I don’t think it’s dangerous,” Lenos said at last. “But I don’t know if what you’re doing is _good_. I have a bad feeling when I think about whatever it is that you’re going to find there.”

Alucard didn’t know what he hoped for: that he would find nothing, and come back disappointed, with the choice of looking for something else valuable enough to buy… what it was that he was ready to pay for; or if it would be worse to find this Inheritor. If he was going to go graverobbing, then he’d prefer that it be worth it. The only thing worse than trying something as audacious as this would be to say he tried while knowing that he could have done more. If he decided not to go through with it, then that was his choice. It would be like standing at the edge and then stepping back again, turning his back to the drop below. And that would be okay.

But Alucard knew that if he found it, then whatever illusion he had about the choice that he’d been making since he asked Vettesse about what that kind of magic would be over. He’d be set on his way, on his own fixed outcome.

_Why are you afraid of that?_

And Alucard didn’t know. When he thought of Anisa, he felt sad for her, but he knew as well that it was the right thing to do. He was not the only person who’d fallen on the wrong side of his father. There was no reason for Alucard not to want this. It was revenge; it was deserved. And after months of reigning terror down on anyone who fell across his sights, wasn’t it time that he finally turned that rage where it belonged?

That thought still sat wrong with Alucard, even though it was reasonable, and understandable, and fair.

“It’s dirty work,” Alucard finally said. “But sometimes that’s how things have to go.”

“Do you have to go by yourself?” Lenos asked, and Alucard nodded. He didn’t think that Lenos looked happy with it.

“I’m trusting you not to say anything about this conversation.”

The change in Lenos’ expression was immediate. If the subject of conversation weren’t what it was, then Alucard might have laughed.

“No, never,” Lenos said. “You can trust me. I promise.”

There was no reason to treat this like a farewell. They parted ways abruptly, and only when Alucard was sure that Lenos wasn’t following at all did he try to leave in earnest. This time the departure felt more final, and he hated it.

Had Lenos offered to come with Alucard, would that have been preferable? It didn’t matter, because it wasn’t an option. This had nothing to do with Lenos. It was between Reson Emery and his second son, and even as he told himself that Alucard wasn’t sure that it was entirely true.

It started to rain after an hour of walking, when the sun had fallen behind the horizon and Alucard had come far enough that when he looked back he saw the lights grouped together at the bottom of the hill, cutting off gracelessly at the edge of the sea.

The _Night Spire_ was docked somewhere there, he thought blandly, before turning and continuing to walk.

The walk was long and tedious. Alucard never would have complained, having always prided himself on his endurance and general adaptability, but there would have been a time when he’d asked himself more forcefully whether what he was doing was necessary. At another point in his life, he would have been furious that this _was_ necessary, on top of being angry that he was going to have to suffer for this, too—but if that was the cost of buying his father’s death, then Alucard would just have to pay it.

He thought of his last night in London. He’d almost gone to see Rhy, _almost_, except that Kell had found him first and made it very clear where he wasn’t want. He’d told himself that the reason he didn’t bother trying anyway was because Kell’s presence made it all rather clear what Rhy wanted from him. (Nothing.) Like so many things, though, Alucard had spent a lot of time wondering how true that was. Could he have faced Rhy again, and lived the lie that Reson Emery had offered the court on his son’s behalf?

Yes. Alucard could live that lie. He knew, because he’d lived it to his sister, for her sake as much as for his freedom. But what kind of freedom would this be, if it meant telling the man that he loved that he’d abandoned him on a whim? And it wasn’t just that Alucard loved Rhy that made the thought of facing him like that so awful. It was because Rhy was incredible. He was bright and looked at Alucard with such affection and wonder when Alucard drew water out of the air and frozen it to keep them cool through the hottest parts of the day, or when he literally drawn the breath from Rhy’s lungs before gracefully returning it. But Rhy also looked at him like that when Alucard simply commented on something in the garden outside from where he sat on Rhy’s balcony, or when he said something clever. Rhy delighted when he brushed Rhy’s hair away from his face and kissed along his jaw until reaching where his neck met his shoulder, and when he touched Rhy like he’d dreamed of touching him for every moment during that summer when he couldn’t be with him. Like he still dreamed of touching Rhy now. While he was with Rhy, he wanted to make him happy; when he was away from him, he imagined that Rhy was thinking of him, too, and tried to find _something _impressive that he could bring back to him.

One day he would find Rhy again. He would tell him everything.

He would tell Rhy everything except for this, because this he had to do alone.

It was several hours more before Alucard saw the cemetery, some distance away. (Once, he would have thought it near, but over a year at sea had given him a better sense of flat distance.) The rain had stopped some time ago, and Alucard found he missed it as the trek up this path left him sweating. He’d taken off his waterlogged jacket and squelched along the path, pushing his wet hair from his face as the dark shapes by the side of the road started to take form in the early light. Later he’d have to repeat this journey, in the other direction, and it would be downhill but still just as long.

And at some point, he’d fall back into step with the rest of his life.

For now all that he could hope was that this little journey wouldn’t be for nothing. The idea that he would ever fall in step with the rest of his life again was an impossible one, because what he was doing here could not exist alongside the rest of his life.

He was holding his wrists again, he realised, turning his hands over and over as though they were still burning and he could do anything but bear the wounds. The idea of Reson Emery’s death was as difficult for Alucard to imagine as a life without him in it. He had, for several months, been free, and look how that had ended!

The graves had once been enchanted, but those spells were old and the family hadn’t kept them up. Really, Alucard thought as he drew up to the degraded headstone, he couldn’t blame anyone for assuming that this would happen. It was a menacing old grave set apart from all the others by its sheer size—go figure that the man arrogant enough to build an Inheritor so his legacy would want to live on would have a grave crafted that reflected the same. The estate responsible could be seen in the distance, and with no cover between the cemetery and the manor it certainly wouldn’t take much more than an ill-timed glance towards the sea to spot the figure menacing in the graves. But at this distance, it would take time for anyone to reach him, and so Alucard would be able to vanish. And with the air so clear and the sky so bright after the downpour the night before, Alucard would see anyone coming. From anyone else’s perspective, Alucard would be nothing more than a ghost.

He stared down at the grave. Storms and the wind and exposure to the sea had sanded down the writing, so that only part of a name and the year of death could be seen.

_What if there’s nothing here?_

He thought of Reson Emery, who had beaten him until he was unconscious and paid to have him vanished off to sea because Alucard loved the wrong person, and who for before that had offhandedly mentioned what a shame it was that someone as powerful as Alucard had no inclination for anything more than just being an evening’s entertainment. This was the man who simultaneously regarded Berras’ lack of magic as a tremendous disappointment, and who did nothing to stop Berras’ jealousy of Alucard from running unchecked. Thinking back on it now, Alucard thought that it was just so convenient for his father that it had to be intentional.

A sudden panic gripped him. Was this part of a fate that his father wanted for him? To be here alone, with no one to witness him and so few people to miss him? How much of Alucard’s life had been set up just so that one day the Emery House would one day be rid of him?

But standing by a cliff, looking out at the sea that glistened in the sun without a care for what it was that Alucard was doing, or his reasons for doing it—the sea that would welcome him back when all of this was done—he didn’t think that it was true. The day was bright and an energy ran through Alucard, so close that even his doubts and fears couldn’t pry it away. No one was that powerful. Whatever his father had done, it was something that Alucard could still escape.

He would find the Inheritor, and use it to buy his father’s death.

And if it wasn’t here, then he would find something else to pay for it.

Alucard Emery was on a course that he could not stray from, even if he wanted to. And he knew, as he knelt on the ground and began to dig, that it was a course that he wanted to travel.


End file.
